An actor par excellence, and one who peaked in the 1970s and ‘80s in delightful roles, before being sidelined... well almost… by Bollywood, Farooq Sheikh’s untimely death at 65 due to a heart attack in Dubai comes as a huge shock.

While directors were not exactly lining up at his door, his deep intelligence, simplicity and modern, liberal outlook, had always sent television anchors scurrying for the man dressed in white, loose-fitting kurta-pyjamas for panel discussions. These varied from talks on “parallel cinema” to the fundamentalist shades of Islam, that had put Indian Muslims on the backfoot.

Of all Farooq Sheikh’s performances, I remember most vividly his role as Nawab Sultan in Muzaffar Ali’s epic film Umrao Jaan , in which he was totally smitten by the courtesan’s charm. As a stunningly beautiful Rekha, who played the title role, performs immortal ghazals such as In aankhon ki masti ke deewane hazaaron hei , Sheikh conveys brilliantly his yearning and passion for her just through his eyes… at some moments by simply gaping at her in wide-eyed awe, at others, through downcast eyes and wearing a half smile.

You struggle to hate him for breaking the courtesan’s heart by simply giving in to family pressure for a marriage of convenience. Very few spineless lovers have been excused in my scheme of things; Nawab Sultan was one of them!

Born in a zamindari family in a Gujarat village, Sheikh graduated from St Xaviers College in Mumbai and then studied law. Before getting into films he was active in theatre and is best known for his role in Tumhari Amrita . His first major breakthrough role in films was in M. S. Sathyu’s Garam Hawa (1973), a poignant saga of the Partition, which also pioneered a new wave in the Hindi film industry. Satyajit Ray’s Shatranj ke Khilari (1977), based on Munshi Premchand’s short story, had Sheikh rubbing shoulders with the immensely talented Sanjeev Kapoor, Amjad Ali Khan, Saeed Jaffrey and Shabana Azmi.

But apart from his serious roles, he will be remembered for the lovelorn, often tongue-tied lover he played in romantic comedies such as Chashme Baddoor (1981) or the poor, hapless lover, Sanju, who doesn’t get the girl (the beautiful Supriya Pathak) in Bazaar , where he speaks the typical Hyderabadi Urdu of the aam admi to such perfection. He played such roles with a seemingly effortless ease, which delivered to the viewers the quintessential character… the actor getting beneath the skin of the role he was playing.

And then, of course, we had him romancing his evergreen heroine in Saath Saath to Jagjit Singh’s immortal melody Tum ko dekha toh yeh khayal aaya .

In Sai Paranjpe’s Katha too he gave a stellar performance. I saw him last in Listen.. Amaya , and wondered why we were seeing more of Sheikh on TV panels much more than films. It was so good to see him team up once again with Deepti Naval, with whom he enjoyed such a fine chemistry on screen in his earlier movies of the 70s and 80s. The movie is about the two, with sufficient silver in their hair, (with him having lost a lot of it anyway!) getting attracted to each other, and Deepti’s daughter Amaya, resenting the relationship. And Sheikh plays Jayant’s role in the 2013 film to perfection.

Twitter started mourning Sheikh’s death right from the morning, with Bollywood stars upfront in the queue. Of all the stars, Amitabh Bachchan got to the crux of the departed soul’s talent and actual persona when his tweets called him "a true gentleman, a wonderful colleague" who had a "quiet honesty about him... there was an absence of any kind of pretence in his demeanour, or towards his work!"

Bidding goodbye to him I watch on Youtube… Is anjuman mei aap ko ana hei baar-baar ; d eeware dar ko gaur se, pehchan li jiye ( Umrao Jaan ) and of course Jagjit’s melody: Aaj phir dil ne ek tamanna ki.. aaj phir dil ko hamne samjhaya .

>rasheeda.bhagat@thehindu.co.in

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